La Spaziale V2 - High Steam Pressure on Startup

#1: Post by **innermusic** » August 19th, 2013, 12:34 am

Lately when turning the machine on in the morning, the steam boiler pressure climbs to 2 bars, then hisses like a goose before gradually falling back below 1.35 bars. What's going on?

#2: Post by **Abnuceals** » August 19th, 2013, 6:52 am

Does it stay at 1.35 ? Mine is always at 1.35 and it is steaming like an old locomotive.
If it went up only once at 2.0 I wouldn't do anything. If it is recurrent or if the steam is inconsistent, yes I would investigate.

#3: Post by **BTD1986** » August 19th, 2013, 7:02 am

You might need to replace your OPV, I had a similar problem and had to do that on mine.

#4: Post by **cannonfodder** » August 19th, 2013, 12:28 pm

Not sure what an OPV would do with boiler pressure. That is brew pressure. Your emergency pressure release valve will open at around 2 bar to keep the boiler from exploding. Your pressurestat is sticking, the machine over heats, the pressure release valve opens and vents steam and you pressurestat unsticks and drops to operating range would be my guess. You may want to take the pressurestat off and give it a light vinegar descale to see if that fixes the problem.

#5: Post by **JohnB.** » August 19th, 2013, 1:36 pm

What pressurestat?

#6: Post by **BTD1986** » August 19th, 2013, 2:03 pm

emergency pressure release valve

Sorry, thats what I meant. Thanks for clearing that up.

Another thing you could try, which Chris Coffee recommended was to wait until the steam boiler reached full pressure then push down on the emergency pressure release valve which will release a lot a steam to clear away any scale build up.

#7: Post by **homeburrero** » August 19th, 2013, 2:52 pm

innermusic wrote:Lately when turning the machine on in the morning, the steam boiler pressure climbs to 2 bars, then hisses like a goose before gradually falling back below 1.35 bars. What's going on?

Here's a possible explanation based purely on theory (as I have no experience with that machine.)

If it had a stuck-shut AV valve, it seems like expanding air in the system might build a lot of pressure (the poorly-named 'false pressure' effect) before the steam boiler's temp control reaches its setting. (I believe this machine uses temp sensors rather than pStats on both boilers.) Once it blew the air out of the safety valve it would be expected to fall back to the pressure that is normal for that temperature.